UK admits colony deal was about US military base
Britain ceded its last African colony as the only way to retain control over a key Indian Ocean military base, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy has said.
The Labour government announced last week that it would hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, ending a decades-long dispute over the archipelago. The largest island in the group, Diego Garcia, was turned over to the US in 1966 and its 2,000 inhabitants deported elsewhere.
“This is a victory for diplomacy. We saved the base, it has been secured for the long term,” Lammy told Parliament on Monday, responding to opposition accusations that the deal gave up Diego Garcia.
“It’s critical for our national security. Without security of tenure there will be no base. The deal benefits us, the UK, the US and Mauritius,” Lammy added.
He also noted that the US supported the deal with Mauritius and that something had to be done before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a binding ruling against the UK that would have put Diego Garcia’s future at risk. In a 2019 advisory opinion, the ICJ told London to cede the islands to Port Louis.
The UK and Mauritius announced last week they would sign a treaty ensuring “the long-term, secure and effective operation of the existing base on Diego Garcia which plays a vital role in regional and global security.”
According to Lammy, this would include retaining control of the base for 99 years in exchange for recognizing Mauritian sovereignty over the island itself.
“We’ve just handed sovereign British territory to a small island nation which is an ally of China, and we are paying for the privilege, all so the foreign secretary can feel good about himself at his next north London dinner party,” former Tory immigration minister Robert Jenrick said, accusing Lammy of working in the interests of “the global diplomatic elite.”
The Chagos announcement prompted Argentina to remind the UK of its claim to the Falkland Islands, an archipelago in the South Atlantic the two countries fought a war over in 1982.
“We will recover full sovereignty over our Malvinas,” Argentine Foreign Minister Diana Mondino announced on X, using the Argentine name for the islands. “The Malvinas were, are, and will always be Argentine.”
However, Lammy insisted that no such thing would be happening. “British sovereignty on the Falkland Islands, Gibraltar and the sovereign base areas is not up for negotiation,” he told parliament on Monday. “The situations are not comparable.”
The foreign secretary also argued that the deal with Mauritius addresses the “deeply wrong” way in which their native population was “forcibly removed.” Meanwhile, some of the Chagossians currently living in the UK protested in London because they were not consulted about the deal at all.
